Microsoft kills Aero Glass (and may actually fix hot corners)

Windows 8 gets spruced up to better reflect the realities of desktop computing.

The Windows 8 user interface is a mix of old and new. While we think that both the old desktop and the new Metro interface work well when considered individually, the combination of the two leaves something to be desired, thanks to, among other things, radically different looks-and-feels, and a dependence on hot corners that play poorly with multimonitor systems.

Microsoft is planning a bunch of changes to Windows 8 that directly address the concerns we had, changes that should greatly improve the Windows 8 user experience. The company has outlined them in a pair of posts on its Building Windows 8 blog: the Windows 8 desktop will sport a new, simpler, flatter theme, and the handling of multiple screens is going to be vastly enhanced with a couple of changes. The desktop will now contain special "traps" in the corners to stop the mouse sliding between screens, and the Start screen, charms bar, and task switcher will be invokable on every screen, not just the primary.

Strangely, the multimonitor post was originally published—briefly—last week, before being removed. It was reposted today.

No more Aero

The design aesthetic of the Metro environment is to be unapologetically digital: it eschews the simulations of real-world physical materials and constraints that most current interfaces feature, with their shaded pseudo-3D buttons, brushed metal texturing, and glassy window borders, in favor of something that is stripped back to its functional core. Buttons, for example are denoted by simple text labels or highly stylized iconography. Window chrome—title bars, borders, scrollbars, toolbars, and menus—is either removed entirely or hidden, appearing only when useful and relevant.

The Aero Glass theme—used in Windows Vista, Windows 7, and current prereleases of Windows 8—is typical for its time. The chrome is heavy and intrusive, with thick, glassy, translucent window borders, bulbous, raised buttons, and extensive use of color and ornamentation to subdivide and segregate content.

On their own, each concept was reasonable, but wedded together, they felt odd: two diametrically opposed ideas about what an interface should look like, and how it should work, crammed together in what we called an "awkward hybrid."

Windows 8's new theme, shown off only in a small screenshot, will take some steps toward reconciling these two UI viewpoints. The new theme will introduce a little more harmony between Metro and the desktop. The glass effect is gone, replaced by flat color. The window buttons are no longer bulky curved blobs in the corner of the window; they're now simple flat rectangles.

The Windows desktop still isn't Metro, and existing Windows applications are not going to use Metro any time soon; they still use resizable windows, toolbars, borders, and more. Software such as Zune, MetroTwit, and Device Center are still going to be truer representations of the Metro ideal than the most regular Windows software. But with the new theme, it looks as if the (almost spurious) stylistic differences between the two worlds will be addressed in some ways.

Microsoft notes that the forthcoming Release Preview, due in early June, will not include the new theme; it will be "hinted at," but the final look of the operating system will only ship with the retail release. New icons are also rumored to be a feature of the final theme.

Improved multimonitor support

The red corners will have the mouse-catching barriers inserted. Barriers are one-sided, so moving from monitor 2 to the bottom of monitor 1 won't catch the mouse.

A significant minority of desktop Windows users—about 14-15 percent, by Microsoft's figures—use multimonitor systems. The current Windows 8 experience leaves a lot to be desired on multimonitor systems. Windows 8 uses hot corners for a number of fundamental operations, and while these hot corners present infinitely large targets on single-monitor systems (just fling the mouse into a screen corner and it'll automatically land on the right spot), they're closer to needles in a proverbial haystack on multimonitor systems, because an attempt to hit the magic pixel more often than not results in the mouse overshooting and moving onto an adjacent screen.

To make them considerably easier to hit, the hot corners in Windows 8 Release Preview will include small "traps:" 6 pixel barriers along the edge of the screen to make the target bigger and prevent overshooting. The Release Preview will also make every corner hot, allowing the task switcher, charms, and Start screen to be called up on any screen.

These refinements are small in themselves, but we've heard that they make a considerable positive improvement to the overall usability of the operating system. The gesture to bring out the charms still requires a little care and attention. To make the charms appear, the mouse is moved into the top or bottom right corner, and then moved in a straight line down or up, towards the middle of the right edge. While the corner traps make it easy to get the mouse into the right place to start the gesture, the movement straight up or down is still unconstrained, and the mouse can still spill out of the target area.

While Windows 8 won't ever escape its hybridity, the changes that Microsoft is making are both steps in the right direction. Will they be enough to make it feel like a coherent single operating system? That's a judgment that will have to wait for the final release.

223 Reader Comments

These are necessary improvements. One can only hope that they get the job done well enough.

I would think, though, that the vertical movements when trying to get to the charm bar would be a little tolerant of horizontal movement. Besides, it's not actually that difficult (for me, anyway) to get a nearly perfect straight vertical line using the mouse. Especially if you're moving quickly and not taking your time.

Glad to hear that they are fixing the multi-monitor support, but I'm really surprised that the percentage of users is that low. I wouldn't have been surprised by less than 50%, but less than 20% is very surprising to me.

Glad to hear that they are fixing the multi-monitor support, but I'm really surprised that the percentage of users is that low. I wouldn't have been surprised by less than 50%, but less than 20% is very surprising to me.

I'm surprised it's as high as 14-15%. If that includes the millions of office and workplace PCs as well as laptops which are inherently single monitor setups. Let's face it - generally only power users use multiple monitors - they might be a higher percentage of Ars readers compared to the general population but they're still in the overwhelming minority.

Glad to hear that they are fixing the multi-monitor support, but I'm really surprised that the percentage of users is that low. I wouldn't have been surprised by less than 50%, but less than 20% is very surprising to me.

I am surprised it is so high. While I personally have 2 at home and 4 at work on my development machine, your average joe is only going to need one. That and they probably don't even know their PC can handle more than one (which maybe it can't). You really only need more than one monitor for productivity in a work environment that requires lots of heavy multitasking.

In some ways it hurts productivity, like when my email gets its own LCD just to try to pry my attention away from what I am doing every 30 seconds.

Yes thank you! I don't need my OS to be a video game, needlessly chewing up processor and RAM resources.

I'm the exact opposite. I love the eye-candy. I didn't upgrade my processor/RAM just to leave 90% of it unused. It took me a while to even take a strong look at Linux just because of the work it took to make it not look like Windows 98. I understand the purpose of the Windows classic theme (I have to use it at work unfortunately) but leave the flashy eye candy there for those who want it.

It does look a bit dull (much like the rest of Metro). They really need to release some more screenshots - this poky little grab of Explorer isn't enough to form a proper opinion.

Hopefully they'll have a couple of decent variants of this theme.

I always liked Aero, though it struck me as being half-finished. There are inconsistencies all over the place, especially with fonts. In the old-style dialogues in W7, tab controls and buttons use MS Sans Serif, everything else uses Tahoma. The new dialogues use Segoe UI. How long would it take to tidy up the fonts? Even just getting rid of the vile MS Sans Serif stuff would be a good start.

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Yes thank you! I don't need my OS to be a video game, needlessly chewing up processor and RAM resources.

It's 2012, and you're complaining about processor and RAM resources? Are you using a 386 with 16mb of RAM?

Can I snap a window to the "inner" edge of a screen? For instance, on my setup I can snap to the left of the left monitor or the right of the right monitor, but I can't snap a window to the left edge of the right monitor or the right edge of the left one. That would be extremely useful.

The GUI as shown in the screenshot is horrible and ugly. It's too bright and has too much white, empty space. Not to mention that the ribbon is one of the worst ideas MS ever had. Maybe it works for Office, but in Windows Explorer it just adds unnecessary complexity and eats up space for commands that I may use like once a week. Give me shortcuts please. Do I really need to have Select All, Copy or Paste icons on my screen ALL THE TIME??? I hope it can be killed easily. Oh, what am I saying... the world will probably stick to Windows 7 for the next 10+ years.

Love it... keep it simple and easy to use. Not to mention it will help keep applications more consistent - as there are still some apps that do not play well with Aero, especially when docking / un-docking laptops from multi-monitor setups... sometimes in changing the "virtual" resolution of the screen (multi-screen) you loose Areo on some windows until you maximize them again, happens quite a bit with chrome and office... Though it does not cause issues, it just looks odd.

The new UI theme looks clean a smooth - I would still like to see LESS border around windows, but hopefully this is still tweekable.

As a lifelong Mac user I am, for the first time ever, finding Windows visually appealing. Windows Phone 7 and this new look for Windows 8 are quite nice..

This is one of the most interesting ironies about Window 8, and something I've seen repeated a lot: While traditional Windows users are upset, a lot of Mac users (including myself) are genuinely interested, and find at least some of the ideas behind the Metro interface really appealing. I know I really like the subset of Metro that drives the XBox 360 dashboard; I'm even considering building a cheap PC (something I haven't done in years) just to run W8 when it comes out, and moving a few tasks and projects over just as a fun experiment.

I see little chance of me abandoning MacOS completely, but it's exciting to feel like both dominant operating systems will soon offer UI paradigms that I find equally attractive, despite the individual ecosystems remaining so different.

Can I snap a window to the "inner" edge of a screen? For instance, on my setup I can snap to the left of the left monitor or the right of the right monitor, but I can't snap a window to the left edge of the right monitor or the right edge of the left one. That would be extremely useful.

You can do that in Windows 7. Use the Windows button (between 'ctrl' and 'alt' on most keyboards) in conjunction with arrow keys. Left and right snap it to various positions, up and down handle minimize/maximize/restore down.

Aero-Glass and Win7 looks and feels very polished (not that it added to productivity, but it was a nice finished departure from XP).However from the screen shot above, Win 8 looks quite boring and uninspired. It's like they just stripped it down of anything that gave it any sort of identity. IMHO.

So, if I'm using a maximized Desktop application, and try to go to the upper-right corner to close it, I won't be able to, because the charms bar will come up instead? Maybe I'll stick to windows 7 after all..

I think we all saw this coming when the Consumer Preview came out. The lack of any sort of transition between the glass edges and the body of the window, the awkward right angles on the window corners, the flat color on the file transfer and task manager windows; Aero was on its way out.

I'm all for consistency, but I'd rather see a little more Aero mixed into Metro rather than see more Metro mixed into the desktop. Metro was designed for small screens and looks hideous on huge monitors. The MSDN blogs says that Aero looks old-fashioned; well, I'll take the 2006 look of Aero over the 1995 look they dredged up for the Windows 8 desktop. That screenshot is awful.

Making Aero's chrome less intrusive would be a step in the right direction, but like what seems to be fashionable these days, Microsoft threw the baby out with the bathwater. Transparency has its uses, although it could be argued that Aero went overboard with it. Drop shadows, however, play a pretty major role in highlighting which window is on top of another, and definitely should have been retained. The windows in the screenshots look like amorphous blobs at a glance.

I'll add this to the ever-expanding list of reasons why I won't be buying Windows 8. It's amazing how successfully Microsoft has turned this from a product that I was genuinely excited about into something that I desperately want to see flop. This will be the first Microsoft OS since Windows 95 that I don't upgrade at least one of my PCs to on launch day.

I find it ironic that Apple had great multi-monitor support all the way back to the Mac II in the 80s, but it got recently pretty useless in Lion's full-screen mode. Microsoft is not dropping the ball in Metro, it looks like.

So, if I'm using a maximized Desktop application, and try to go to the upper-right corner to close it, I won't be able to, because the charms bar will come up instead? Maybe I'll stick to windows 7 after all..

You can still close all your desktop programs as normal by clicking the "X" in the top-right corner even if it's maximized. The hot corners are click-through, meaning that they don't interfer with your desktop programs close button.

I like the new theme. Reminds me a little of the Watercolor theme from Windows XP's beta. Much better than the Luna theme it actually shipped with, and much, much better than 7's atrocious Windows Basic theme. Will it be customizable?

araemo wrote:

EVERY corner is hot?

So, if I'm using a maximized Desktop application, and try to go to the upper-right corner to close it, I won't be able to, because the charms bar will come up instead? Maybe I'll stick to windows 7 after all..

It doesn't work like that in the Consumer Preview. The Charms Bar doesn't fully "activate" until the mouse is moved down/up from that the hot corner.

Glad to hear that they are fixing the multi-monitor support, but I'm really surprised that the percentage of users is that low. I wouldn't have been surprised by less than 50%, but less than 20% is very surprising to me.

I am surprised it is so high. While I personally have 2 at home and 4 at work on my development machine, your average joe is only going to need one. That and they probably don't even know their PC can handle more than one (which maybe it can't). You really only need more than one monitor for productivity in a work environment that requires lots of heavy multitasking.

In some ways it hurts productivity, like when my email gets its own LCD just to try to pry my attention away from what I am doing every 30 seconds.

There have been multiple studies showing increased productivity with multiple monitors, I'm surprised the number is still so low. A lot of the studies aren't very recent, and LCD's aren't very expensive. If someone who makes $40k/year could improve productivity by 0.5%, it would justify the purchase of a $200 second monitor. In reality, monitor cost amortized over 3-7 year useful life, and there's some increase in the utility bill, but the point is if it helps just a little bit, it is worth it given the low cost.

Glad to hear that they are fixing the multi-monitor support, but I'm really surprised that the percentage of users is that low. I wouldn't have been surprised by less than 50%, but less than 20% is very surprising to me.

I'm surprised it's as high as 14-15%. If that includes the millions of office and workplace PCs as well as laptops which are inherently single monitor setups. Let's face it - generally only power users use multiple monitors - they might be a higher percentage of Ars readers compared to the general population but they're still in the overwhelming minority.

About 75% of the employees at my (small) company use dual monitors. The increased productivity from being able to multitask email with other applications makes it an obvious purchase for businesses.

Mid-90's X Windows look? To me the theme/chrome looks more like MacOS circa about 1987.

Reminds me a little of Whistler, a development half-way between Windows 2000 and XP. It was dropped, but it had similar square corners, flat slightly off-white backgrounds, and 2D Metro-esque icons. Maybe someone dusted it off and revamped it.

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In any event, every time they release more information about Win 8 it becomes more and more clear that I'm going to be running Win 7 for a very long time.

The new non-Aero look certainly helps consistency a lot. That being said (and maybe it's because I am just not used to it) it is looking pretty terrible to me.

A lot of the icons are likely going to be changed to be more "Metro" like.

Sounds great if I ever downgrade to an 8-bit monitor, but looking at Metro screens and I'm having a hard time distinguishing icons that normally have an "iconic" look to them.

IE, Photoshop, and Azureus have fairly recognizable icons. Just placing a white "E", "PS", or Azureus frog into a blue block and at a quick glance they become almost indistinguishable.

I won't be using Windows if Metro is any part of the experience. Between the 8-bit color palette, the full-screen launcher, hot corners, and going from the unsupported "gadgets" (that I found quite usable and unobtrusive) to this mess of a launcher/chicklet screen still doesn't make an ounce of sense to me as a Windows/desktop user.

And yes, I used the preview version.

TIMMAH! wrote:

Yes thank you! I don't need my OS to be a video game, needlessly chewing up processor and RAM resources.

Then you must have some serious issues with Metro's garish XBox-style full-screen launcher.

Let's just hope Microsoft doesn't force us to create dress-up-dolly avatars the first time we boot up Win8 like they did with the XBox 360 and the big Metro update. It was enough to get me to sell my XBox on Craigslist the next day and build a gaming PC

No matter what they do, it will remain ugly. I really don't understand it. Yes, Microsoft has never really "gotten it" in terms of UI. They've chased Apple for so many years, and then went well beyond them with Aero, that now they're coming back too far. The main problem with Microsoft's UI, as it's seemed to me, is the poor color selections and contrasts. It always looked as though a child did the coloring in.

Metro, on my desktop 27" monitor looks horrible, and so does the current desktop, if that's what we can call it these days. Metro looks like something from the opening credits screen of a late 1950‘s movie.

The whole thing is confusing.

I know Microsoft is trying to force Metro on people, because they have no other choice, so they seem to think. I imagine that by doing so, miraculously, people will wake up one day and think its wonderful, and so they had better rush out and buy that phone and tablet to match. I think it will do the opposite.